warm-up is the boring bit I finally stopped skipping

Honestly I spent like two years just... going straight onto the wall. Chalk up, pick a route, go. And I'd wonder why my fingers felt dead for the first 20 minutes or why my shoulders were stiff halfway through a session. What actually works for me now — and I mean this took ages to figure out — is doing about 10 minutes of just movement before I even think about touching holds. Arm circles, shoulder rolls, wrist rotations because climbing absolutely destroys your wrists if you don't wake them up first. Then I'll do a couple of easy traverses, really low, nothing crimpy, just to get blood into my fingers. After that maybe some hip openers because footwork suffers when your hips are tight and nobody talks about that enough. The whole thing feels a bit daft while you're doing it but the difference in how the session goes is pretty noticeable tbh. I don't ache the next day as much either, which matters when I've got client calls in the morning and can't be sat there wincing every time I move a mouse.